NHL's recovery plan: More games, fewer blackouts

Updated 6:06 am, Friday, January 18, 2013

Under new guidelines, the Capital Region will not be blacked out of any New York Rangers game in this lockout-shortened NHL season. (Jason Szenes/The New York Times)

Under new guidelines, the Capital Region will not be blacked out of any New York Rangers game in this lockout-shortened NHL season. (Jason Szenes/The New York Times)

Photo: JASON SZENES

NHL's recovery plan: More games, fewer blackouts

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Never a trend-setter for fan treatment, the National Hockey League recognizes a massive public-relations task ahead to get folks interested again in its game.

Three idle months, courtesy of a lockout that officially lasted 119 days, left the pro sport in a vulnerable state. A simple gramatically incorrect slogan on the ice, as was done after the entire 2004-05 season was lost, won't be enough. ("Thank You Fans" was the message, which omitted a necessary comma before "Fans.")

The NHL's immediate answer? A more fan-friendly approach to television. It's a 99-day regular season, during which each of the 30 teams will cram in 48 games.

Maybe it's on the right track.

More Information

Sound bytes

1 Stuart Scott, approaching the 20-year mark at ESPN, plans to continue working as he undergoes cancer treatments for a third time. He is one of the few to praise cyclist Lance Armstrong, who admitted taking PEDs to win his seven Tour de France titles. "I don't care about a bike race," Scott, 47, told USA Today. "His efforts that affected millions of people with cancer is his legacy, and you're not going to argue me off that."

2 Speaking of Armstrong, he must have been among the happiest folks to hear the Manti Te'o story break. While news-gathering entities tried to break ground on Te'o, the Notre Dame linebacker whose story of a girlfriend and her death from leukemia were revealed as a hoax, Armstrong was spared some of the spotlight he never wanted.

3 A YES Network report determined that in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy DMA (Designated Market Area), Yankees games on its channel drew an average rating 220 percent higher than what the Mets delievered on SNY. Of course, much of that can be attributed to the teams' on-field production. Interestingly, that percentage was much higher for Syracuse (483 percent), Hartford/New Haven (433) and Binghamton (250), which is home to the Mets' Class AA affiliate.

No blackouts

Since the Hartford Whalers left for Raleigh after the 1996-97 season, the NHL has declared the Capital Region as Buffalo Sabres territory, even though there are six NHL cities closer to Albany. (If you think that is strange, it used to be designated a Hartford market, even though the Whalers games weren't available to TV viewers living here.)

In the abbreviated regular season, no Rangers games will be blacked out on MSG and MSG+. Only seven games each of the Devils' and Islanders' schedule will be in the dark, and most of those will be available on other outlets. All 48 Sabres games also will be picked up.

NHL "Center Ice," the out-of-market subscription package that gives viewers virtually every game in the league, has been reduced from its regular price of around $175 for the season to $49.95 on InDemand (which services most cable companies) and $59.96 on DirecTV. There's also a 13-day free preview to start the season.

Some were hoping the NHL might offer it for free, but as commissioner Gary Bettman explained this week on WFAN's "Boomer & Carton" show, "We have partners in that business, so we don't have the luxury of just giving it away. What we're trying to do is get it to a place where we think it's certainly a very good offer, but it's something that the business partners ... can live with."

Then again, with an average of 2.7 games per night available without the package, why bother?

'Rivalry Night'

NBC Sports Network, which will have games Sunday through Wednesday most weeks, labeled Wednesday as "Rivalry Night."

Twelve of the 15 telecasts feature at least one team from the Original Six. Eight are divisional games. Fighting is encouraged.

Less can be more

All matchups will be intraconference, and with teams playing virtually every other night, each game carries more weight than during a full-length regular season.

"The sense of urgency right off is to win games," NBC play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick said. "In a 48-game season, if you lose three or only get a point out of your first six possible, that's the equivalent of getting two points out of the first 12. It's almost double. If you lose three, you lose six, really."